How to get students talking. And how that benefits everyone

Simple solutions can sometimes solve complex problems. Communication problems at workplaces, especially among Gen Zs, have many causes and education can have a positive or negative impact.

Simply getting students into the habit of talking benefits students, teachers and society. However, talking alone is not enough and, while some think they are talking, the art of conversation is in decline and this has many knock-on effects in areas ranging from learning and mental health to political division and productivity problems.

Electronic communication masks the problem by ignoring the simple act of understanding between the sender and receiver.

We need to talk about talking.

To help university students reflect and become productive adults, I have started giving my students graded activities that involve talking with others and I have noted a progressively greater potential impact on them.

The activities, before their final year, involve talking with seniors within the faculty, students in other faculties and professionals. Having learners talk with others helps develop their conversational skills, builds awareness of others and, most importantly, increases the relevance of what they are learning to the wider community.

These undertakings complement in-class activities. Hopefully, they will help them become better adults and more productive members of society too.

I have met second-year students who have not spoken to any of their 40 or so classmates. We lecturers think students are talking to each other, but often they are not. Thus, we used speed dating and networking type simulations to get students to talk with each other in class. The more I ask, the more I realise that students need to be talking among themselves.

Getting students talking

In the first year, students are asked to talk to seniors in their faculty. These 10x10 talks require first-year students to spend 10 minutes talking to 10 seniors in English about university life, how to be successful at university based on the seniors’ experience, what resources are available and general questions about acclimatisation to university life.

Students are given a three-hour class on how to have a conversation and prompt questions to stimulate an exchange. Learners are also encouraged to ask about anything they are interested in. In addition, conversing in English helps the students become comfortable with their second language and hear how others have developed their language abilities. The activity helps students become comfortable in their new environment and build a potential network of mentors or support.

In the second year, students are asked to talk with others at the university about how their degree can impact those in other faculties. Again, the idea is to spark curiosity, discover what others are doing and understand the relationships among different disciplines.

In the workplace, students will interact with various disciplines (this is one reason for our many integrated degrees), so having learners talk with those in other faculties stimulates an awareness that can be used later in life. Social clubs at universities have helped with this previously, but participation rates have been declining.

Having students speak with other students at the same university helps take the edge off feeling uncomfortable talking to strangers. Being challenged to interact with someone they do not know helps them to explore outside their normal circle. After knowing they can complete the task, there is a surprising sense of accomplishment.

In the third year, students are asked to talk to professionals in English in a professional environment. This activity is to help develop the students’ maturity, expose them to the professional environment, develop their ideas of what to do after graduating, make contacts and more.

Students find this activity challenging for many reasons, mainly because they need to figure out what they want to do after graduating and because they have had limited interaction with working adults. Students are exposed to the workplace behaviour and dress and the ways professionals communicate. Exposure to a mature environment is excellent preparation for an internship in their fourth year.

The results have been mixed and depend on student involvement. The exercises do develop the skills students will need in the adult world, help build their awareness and point them in a direction that best benefits them.

Some of the benefits are very positive, for example, students may find out about career options they did not know existed, which may end up in a job. One student found a way to balance his engineering degree with his desire to go into business, thus pleasing his parents and getting what he wanted.

The negatives (such as students complaining about having to go out and interact) are still useful. There is a gradual development of skills, with students being more comfortable and open to communicating in different ways with different people.

Reduced social skills

Parents and friends contribute to developing communication skills, but there has been a trend of parents talking less to their children and having fewer kids.

There are increasing speech delays among children partly because the level of chatter that kids were exposed to before is significantly reduced and not helped by being given a screen.

Without a grounding in developing relationships at home, having friends has become more difficult, with the virtual world being a poor substitute for authentic friendship. No wonder friendship therapy is a growing field.

Research has shown that talking to someone in person helps significantly more than communicating by text, yet most communication today is done via mobile devices.

Technology, unfortunately, is a tool that has contributed the most to the decline of in-person conversations and many other social ills (mental health, political division and so on).

AI could possibly slow the decline by helping develop conversation skills. AI writing prompts require people to talk to a machine and being polite helps get more relevant responses. However, we educators must remind our students that having authentic in-person conversations is the best way to develop as well-rounded individuals. There will always be disagreements and challenges, but being able to manage these difficulties only helps the individual grow.

There are many benefits associated with encouraging students to talk more, and educators can do much to encourage positive communication skills, starting with having regular chats with students.

The simple act of having a conversation is a skill that transcends discipline, culture and time. Academics can include simple activities such as talking with others to help students be better prepared for adulthood and contribute positively to society.

Dr Mariano Carrera is a lecturer at International College, King Mongkut’s University of Technology, North Bangkok, Thailand.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.